No shit.

He’d thought immediately of the woman Savich had set him up with last Saturday night. Was he using her again? Would Savich be that blatant? It didn’t sound like something Savich would do, but if you tried to predict Savich, you’d be wrong nine point nine out of ten times.

Cautiously he took the walkway up to the porch of the house. He looked over both shoulders, but saw no movement on the street, heard no sounds. Old boards groaned beneath his weight as he crossed the porch to the door.

He realized chances were excellent that he was walking into a trap that would spell his doom. He had figured that Savich would launch a surprise attack. Had he been wrong? Had Savich decided on a face-to-face showdown instead?

Or maybe, inside this house, Savich had another gory surprise waiting for him. The corpse of Lucille Jones, perhaps. The prostitute who’d been pleasuring Savich following the murder of Freddy Morris was still at large and, consequently, unable to be questioned by police. Possibly Savich had silenced her forever and left her body here for Duncan to find.

Gordie Ballew also crossed his mind. Had Savich heard that they’d tried to strike a deal with Gordie to turn snitch? Lucky for Gordie, he was safely behind bars in the county jail.

Whatever this old house held in store for him, the moment of truth had arrived. Duncan moved aside the rusty screen door that was hanging by one hinge, then took hold of the doorknob. It turned in his hand. He had to apply his shoulder to get the moisture-swollen door to open, then he stepped across the threshold into the house. The air inside was stifling hot, and had the musty smell of old, vacant houses. But not of decaying flesh, he noted with relief.

Listening intently for any sound, he took a moment to orient himself. It was a traditional Southern house, built before air-conditioning, when cross-ventilation was necessary for cooling during the brutal summers. At one time, maybe a century ago, it would have been a lovely house.

Ahead of him stretched a hallway with a staircase at one end and rooms opening off it on both sides. He crept forward and guardedly looked into the first one on his right. It was empty. Wainscoting and several generations of faded, tearing wallpaper. A hole in the ceiling where a chandelier had once hung. Probably designed to be a dining room.

He crossed the hallway to the opposite room, which was a parlor. Different wallpaper, but also torn. Ragged sheer curtains looking as fragile as spiderwebs hanging in the windows. The room was furnished, but sparsely.

Elise Laird was standing in the center of it.

His heart did something funny. But he raised his gun and pointed it at her.

“You’re here.” Her voice was barely a whisper. The same whispering voice that had left the message on his cell phone. He wondered why he hadn’t recognized it as her voice.

Or had he?

Had he known, despite the mention of Savich, precisely who would be waiting for him here in this dark and deserted house? Had he refused to acknowledge that it was her voice, because if he had, he couldn’t have come here with a clear conscience? Savich provided him justification for coming. She didn’t.

“What the hell?” he asked angrily.

“I used that criminal’s name to get you here.”

“How did you know it would?”

“Cato told me about your history with him.”

He studied her for long, ponderous moments, then lowered the nine-millimeter. But he left a bullet in the chamber and he didn’t return it to the holster. He moved so that his back would be to the wall and not to the open doorway.

Sensing his wariness, she said, “There’s no one else here, if that’s what you’re thinking. I had to see you alone.”

“Whose place is this?”

It was the first time he’d seen her with her hair hanging loose rather than pulled back. It brushed her shoulders when she moved her head. “It belongs to a friend.”

“Your friend should consider refurbishing.”

“He’s been away for a long time. He gave me permission to use the house if I needed to, in exchange for airing it out occasionally.”

Duncan nodded as though that explained everything, when actually it explained nothing. It generated more questions, but those would have to wait. Already, there was enough to talk about.

“Okay, I took the bait and you got me here. What do you want?”

“It’s not a matter of what I want, Duncan. It’s what I need. Your help. I’m desperate.”

Hearing her say his name was like getting a punch in the gut. He tried to ignore the sensation, but couldn’t, and that made him angry. “I assume you sneaked out on your husband.”

“I didn’t have to. Your phone call upset him. He went to the country club.” Reading his surprise, she explained. “A lot of his colleagues, even the DA, are in a poker tournament. They were playing tonight. Cato knew word would circulate that I was being questioned by police again tomorrow. He wanted it to seem that he wasn’t worried. He didn’t tell me that. I just know how he thinks. Anyhow, he went. I waited for Mrs. Berry to go home, then called you.”

“And lured me here to Boo Radley’s house. Why?”

“Would you put the gun away?”

“No.”

“You’ve got nothing to fear from me.”

Only losing my job, he thought. My career. My integrity.

“I’m the one who should be afraid.” Saying that, she took several steps toward him.

He caught a whiff of perfume. It was light, floral. Intoxicating. She was dressed similarly to how she’d been when she showed up at his town house. Skirt, sandals, a tank top. Not nearly as skimpy or revealing as Esteban’s fiancée’s had been. But skimpy enough to make Duncan aware of the shape of her breasts. Uncomfortably aware.

“I know what these little games of yours are about, Mrs. Laird. They’re to keep me off track, to divert me from the investigation, to keep me from arresting you for the murder of Gary Ray Trotter.”

There. That sounded good. He was the investigator; she was the suspect. That’s the way it was, and that’s the way it had to be, even if he was aching to put his hands on her.

“Why don’t you believe I shot Trotter in self-defense? Why don’t you believe me about Cato? About Coleman?”

He paused for effect, then said, “I’m glad you brought him up. I went to Atlanta to see Tony Esteban today.”

Her reaction showed how surprised she was to hear that. “You talked to him?”

“Oh, yeah. We had a friendly chat.”

“What did he say?”

“You’re not his favorite person.”

“Nor he mine.”

“In fact he called you a psycho bitch and worse.”

“He doesn’t even know me. I only met him once at a party.”

“Where Coleman Greer passed out from too much drink, and you and his friend Tony got nekkid and held a private party.”

“What?”

“I’ll spare you the embarrassment of recounting the juicy details. Suffice to say, you were the initiator. You and Esteban had a real good time while your fool of a date, Coleman Greer, was incapacitated.

“But next morning, you turned into every man’s nightmare. Got possessive and clingy. Kept calling Tony on the phone. Wouldn’t go away, and when it became obvious that he wanted nothing more from you than those couple of hot-hot tumbles, you swore to get even with him someday, which turned out to be yesterday when you told Detective Bowen and me that he was Coleman Greer’s gay lover.”

She looked at him aghast. “You believe all that?”

“More than I believe your version.”

She groped behind her for the padded arm of the sofa, one of the few pieces of furniture in the room, and slowly sat down on it. For several minutes she stared into space.

Eventually she looked across at him. “He’s lying,” she stated simply. “He’s lying. Yes, Coleman invited me to a Braves party. I told you that. And there, he introduced me to Tony Esteban. Coleman did get drunk that night. But he did so because Tony was flirting with me. Coleman was already infatuated with him, and Tony had led him to believe that his interest was reciprocated.”